by David Blixt
Suddenly a messenger entered, looking queasy. The Doge broke off his conversation with Tharwat to chastise the man. “It’s about time! Where is our meal?”
With deepest apologies, the man explained there was something wrong with the garrison’s food. “The men are sick. A reaction to bad meat or something very like. It’s not fatal, only – well, embarrassing. We don’t wish to risk your majesty’s health, so we have sent for food from another kitchen, in another quarter. That is the delay. Our deepest regrets.” He bowed and scurried off, his own belly groaning audibly.
Morsicato made certain his face was grim. “Maestro, perhaps we should depart. Our presence only adds to the Doge’s troubles.”
“Certainly not!” cried Doge Soranzo. “Perhaps you could go to the kitchens and divine the cause of the illness!” He laughed, expecting everyone to join in. Dandolo, however, was worryingly pensive.
Tharwat bowed deeply. “If Sua Serenità wishes it so, it shall be done.”
“No, no, I’m only joking,” said Soranzo. “Please stay! I promise, what we eat will be tasted long before it passes our lips.”
“Yes, do stay,” said Dandolo. “I have not heard enough yet about your new apprentice. Tell us about him – where he hails from, how he came to be in your service. I am fascinated! Where did you say you were from, Signore Focarile?” The way he was eyeing Morsicato was unsettling. Had he recognized the beardless doctor? Was his sensitive nose finally smelling out a rat?
Morsicato opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a slight tapping on the door. It opened, and Cesco came through. His hat was pushed to the back of his head, exposing his face entirely. There was a faint blueness to his lips and some vomit on his sleeve. He clutched his stomach painfully. Had the idiot eaten some of the tainted food himself?
“Master, beware! We are poisoned! Angelo is barely able to stand, and I am vomiting blood!” There was no sign of blood, but Cesco did certainly look poorly.
“Still your tongue, boy,” snapped Tharwat in anger. “Do not presume to accuse our host of such a thing! It is not you alone who suffers. Something wrong in the meat, as we have already heard. Everyone in these walls has been affected.” He turned quickly to the Doge. “Forgive my page, your majesty. He is overly dramatic.” Tharwat gave Morsicato a nod. “Go, see to this one and Angelo. Take them back to our lodgings. I will be along.”
Morsicato left with Cesco leaning heavily on his arm. The doctor felt Dandolo’s eyes on him all the way out. Tharwat must have sensed Dandolo’s suspicions, and was remaining behind to allay them. Sacrificing himself to save Pietro. Hardly the act of a devilish Assassin.
The guards at the palace doors were too busy fighting off their own queasiness to ask where the second boy had gotten to. If they wondered, they probably assumed he was still attending the Moor.
As soon as they were out of the palace, Morsicato said, “You didn’t actually ingest any of it, did you?”
Cesco straightened at once. “Of course not! But it had to look good, so I held my breath as long as I could, several times in a row, then stuck my finger down my throat. Convincing?”
“Very. Where is Pietro? Did you get him out?”
“He and Detto should be at the ship by now.”
“The ship,” said Morsicato with a heavy sigh.
“That’s right!” cried Cesco brightly. “You don’t like being on the water, do you? In all our years at Ravenna, I never saw you go swimming, or even take a pleasure cruise.”
Morsicato didn’t rise to the imp’s bait. It was true, he was a very poor sailor – the largest ship in the calmest sea had the ability to churn his stomach worse that Dog’s Mercury. But it was the best plan of escape, so he had acceded.
The hired gondola was waiting for them, and they shoved off at once. “What about my Shadow?” asked Cesco in real concern.
“We can’t delay.” Morsicato’s glance conveyed the unspoken, Or we might all be caught. “If he’s there when we set sail, he’s there. If not, well…”
In twenty minutes they were climbing up the short ladder to the ship, already bobbing between San Marco’s Basin and the Arsenale. It was a long, low, single-decked cutter, hired by Tharwat in his servile guise. The crew was well-paid, the captain moreso, on the condition that he deliver his passengers to their destination with all haste. Moreover, he was Genoese by descent, and thus hardly inclined to tattle to Venetian authorities.
By arrangement, the ship had already cleared the customs officers and moved out into the lane. Now, thanks to a handy bit of chicanery, there was a fouling of the lines, which brought a sail whipping free. It was rigged to do so, and could be back up in a moment, but from the shore it looked as if the crew were simply incompetent.
The gondola angled as if to head for San Marco’s basin. At the last moment it whipped left and pulled up alongside the waiting vessel. Cesco scrambled up the ladder, the doctor practically throwing himself after. The gondola, having wasted only fifteen seconds, continued on towards the basin as if nothing had chanced.
The captain was there to greet them. “Well done. And this mist is a real blessing. Otherwise all this coming and going might bring that customs bastard back.”
“So the others have arrived?” demanded Morsicato anxiously.
“Another boy, and some poor beggar,” said the captain. “Came in a couple minutes ago. I sent them below and gave him some new clothes. Looks like he’s been gnawed by rats!”
“Then he should be right at home on board,” said Cesco. The captain stumped off, grumbling.
“We have to tell him to shove off right now,” said Morsicato.
“We’ll wait ten minutes,” said Cesco firmly. “I understand your concerns, but we didn’t save one to lose the other.” He descended to the cabin, and Morsicato followed, grumbling. Cesco had that effect.
Down in the cabin, Pietro was shirtless, scrubbing himself with a stone over a basin of water. He glanced up as the door opened. “Cesco! Thank God. Who is that with – Morsicato? Is it you? What the devil happened to your face?” Pietro gaped, causing both Cesco and Detto to titter like girls.
Before the doctor could reply they heard a commotion and ran up to the deck, Pietro throwing on a borrowed sailor’s shirt as he went. Idle sailors clustered along the starboard side, gazing through the mist at some excitement on the far quay. Torches illumed the mist, their light reflecting on steel weapons in the near distance.
“S’a fight,” observed a sailor, squinting hard.
“Who’s that tall fellow they’re after?” asked his mate. “Looks like he’s burned.”
“He’s a black, fool!” said a third.
“A negro?”
“A Moor.” Cesco elbowed his way to the rail, craning to see.
On the quay Tharwat al-Dhaamin was swinging a polearm at his attackers, who jabbed back at him with sword and spear and oar. Even as he parried and feinted, one of the weapons connected and the Moor toppled backwards over the edge into the water.
“No,” breathed Pietro.
“Poor bastard,” said Morsicato.
“He’s not done yet,” insisted Cesco.
At once several attackers rushed to the edge to throw spears into the disturbed water. There was a lighter mark in the water where the Moor’s fine outer wrap came floating to the top.
Amid the mutters of the sailors, Morsicato said, “Do you see him?”
“No,” replied Pietro, watching closely.
“He’s there,” said Cesco with certainty.
The men at the quay’s edge moved aside for a tall figure in a flowing gonella – Dandolo. The Venetian Ambassador was cursing every one of the men surrounding him. The fine patrician head then came up to stare out into the lanes. It seemed that for a moment he was staring right at Alaghieri. Pietro didn’t move, lest he draw more attention to himself. Then it occurred to him that the presence of two boys might be just as revealing.
But Cesco was now on the higher deck, hidden from view
as he stood beside the vessel’s master. “Captain?”
Reluctantly, the captain tore his eyes away from the quayside excitement. “What is it, boy?”
“My master is in a hurry,” murmured Cesco, nodding towards Morsicato. “He feels that if we stay, we may be caught up in a general search of vessels. Those bastard customs agents,” he added, shaking a fist.
If the captain made a connection between fighting on the docks and the Moor who had hired him, he said nothing of it. Thinking of his promised fee, he gave orders to set out at once. The ‘fallen’ sail was righted, the oars manned, and in moments they were underway.
“Now you want to leave?” demanded Morsicato in Cesco’s ear. “Now?”
“He’ll be fine,” said Cesco tranquilly.
Pietro watched the place where Tharwat had dived. He better not be dead. I didn’t have a chance to apologize.
Cesco was on the poop of the ship, fiddling with a length of rope. He began to whistle, until he was told to stop by sailors who kept mistaking his whistles for orders. Instead he took up singing a childish ditty, one commonly sung in conjunction with a game – throwing stones or mock-jousting on another boy’s shoulders at an apple on a string.
Can’st thou not hit it, my good man?
Can’st thou not hit it, hit it, hit it?
Yes, I can hit it, yes, I can,
Yes, I can hit it, hit it, hit it!
Thou can’st not hit it, hit it, hit it,
Thou can’st not hit it, my good man.
And I cannot, cannot, cannot,
And I cannot, another can!
After singing it through once, Cesco substituted other words for hit. At first the words were common synonyms for hit – strike, cuff, beat. Then he moved on to more titillating replacements – whack, pinch, slap – and from there to words with strong double meanings – stroke, spear, pierce.
By this point all the sailors were singing the answering part of the song, chortling as they did. Was the boy even aware of what he was singing?
Cesco remained sitting on the poop, looking aft, tying knots around a loose plank. But he soon had them all howling when he proved he knew exactly what he was about, substituting the verb ‘hump.’ The sailors sang with gusto, “Yes, I can hump it, yes I can! Yes, I can hump it, hump it, hump it!”
Expecting Cesco to tease them with the reply of “Thou canst not hump it, hump it, hump it,” they were surprised when he leapt out of his seat. “Man overboard! Man overboard!” Immediately he threw his plank into the water, the rope trailing after it.
Sails were hauled in and idlers clustered around the poop deck, staring aft into those fog-shrouded waters. One said, “I didn’t hear a splash.”
“We was singin’ too loud,” said another.
“Poor devil,” exclaimed a third. “Look at this fog! He’s a goner for certes!”
None of them dived in, for none could swim. Instead a lamp was brought to peer into the water just in case by some miracle the poor devil had learned to paddle.
Cesco’s rope went suddenly taught and a cheer went up from the crew – the man in the water had clutched the plank!
A gust of wind cleared the nearby fog. “He’s a Moor!” The man instantly drew his knife, raising it to hack the heathen’s lifeline. Cesco grasped the man’s arm at the elbow and wrist. A simple twist and the man’s hand was empty, the knife skittering down the deck. “He’s with us.”
Pietro and Morsicato hauled at the rope, pulling the Moor aboard. A magnificent feat of strength and will, to swim under the water until out of sight of the quay, then to carry on to intercept the ship. Pietro realized that Cesco had used a slow rhythm to his song, keeping the oars moving with less power, so the Moor could have a chance. In fact, the song served a double purpose, also leading Tharwat to the right ship. Clever!
They got the sodden Tharwat below decks to dry him. Barely had he sat before Cesco was demanding, “What happened! Tell us everything!”
“Dandolo suspected,” croaked the Moor, rubbing his shivering limbs to life again. “He sent to the gaols. Before the answer returned, I struck Dandolo cold and told the Doge he would be cursed forever if he raised the alarum. I departed. They pursued.”
“We saw the rest.” Pietro laid a hand on Tharwat’s shoulder. “I am very glad to see you.”
Tharwat actually smiled. “I am equally pleased you still live.”
“Thanks to you,” replied Pietro feelingly, “here and in Padua both. How did you know I’d need you more than Cesco?”
“I am an astrologer.” In spite of his chattering teeth, the Moor’s note of real mirth had them all laughing. “Even were I not, nothing could prevent Cesco’s treatment at the Scaliger’s hands. It seemed assured that, as long as he was with Cangrande, he was safe. Whereas you were alone, part of a scheme none of us saw until too late.”
“I’m thankful. Cesco told me about dosing the Doge’s guards. Is that the kind of thing you were trained to do?”
Tharwat’s eyes veiled, but he sensed Pietro was reaching out, trying to understand. “An ounce of humiliation is worth a pound of poison.”
“What are you two talking about?” demanded Cesco. “Trained for what?”
“Never you mind.” To Tharwat, Pietro said, “I wish I’d seen you strike Dandolo.”
Catching a fresh wind, the ship lurched, sending the doctor to his knees. “Ooooch…”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Cesco brightly.
“Hate boats,” growled the doctor to no one. “Hate ‘em.”
Pietro said, “Where are we heading?”
Tharwat answered. “They’ll be searching for us on the road east to Verona, and in the waterways south. So the captain has orders to feint south, then move north and put us off somewhere close. We’ll be heading inland by midnight.”
“Right, but wrong,” said Pietro firmly. “They know you have me with you, and I’d be telling you to head for Modena. That’s where Cangrande is, isn’t it?”
Cesco nodded with a frown. “How did you know?”
“Ooooooh!” The doctor clutched at the wall as they entered the larger waterways and the chop increased.
“Do not close your eyes,” suggested Tharwat helpfully. “Lock your gaze on a fixed point.”
“Doesn’t help!” Morsicato gagged.
“Ew!” cried Detto.
“Yes, ew! Go outside, if you’re going to heave!” Grinning, Cesco turned back to Pietro. “How do you know he’s at Modena? You’ve been imprisoned.”
“What’s the date?” Pietro was answered with quizzical glances. “Today’s date, what is it?”
“The tenth of November,” said Tharwat, always aware of dates and moon and stars.
“Then we’re not too late.” In a few brief words, Pietro explained all the elements of the failed plot between Passerino and Dandolo, and of Bonaccolsi’s current enterprise with the unknown Scaligeri. He concluded by saying, “Dandolo will think I’ll convince you all to head for Modena to warn Cangrande.”
“That’s too bad,” said Cesco. “Because that’s just what we have to do.”
“No, we go to – Vicenza, maybe? Or back to Ravenna. Guido Novello is a friend, he’ll hide you until this is all over.” He saw the bewilderment in the boy’s face. “Don’t you see? Whoever the plotter is, as long as you stay alive, his plan has failed.”
Cesco held up a hand. “Wait. I just found out who my father is. Are you saying I should now turn tail and let him be murdered?”
“Not at all,” snapped Pietro. Acutely aware of his recent deficit of morality, he was determined to save the Scaliger’s life. The day he was knighted Pietro had sworn to serve the Scaliger, and that oath bound him tightly. None of which obscured Pietro’s paramount responsibility. “But you have to stay alive. You’re more important than anything.”
“How could I live with myself knowing I did nothing while my father was stabbed in the back?”
“He won’t be. We’ll put in and I’ll ri
de inland. The rest of you, hide.”
Cesco gave a soundless laugh. “How do you think that’s better? Letting you risk your life while I play the hare and hide in a hole? No, I’m going with you.”
“I’m going with Cesco,” said Detto instantly.
Pietro’s voice grew sterner by the moment. “Talk all you like, neither one of you is going back to Modena. When the battle happens, you’re not going to be there. No – Cesco, I don’t care what you want, as long as you’re alive to want it.”
“I’m sorry I saved you!”
“I’m grateful. Now let me save you.”
Cesco glowered at Pietro, who stared back unrepentantly. The moment was broken by the sound of Morsicato swallowing down his own gorge. Cesco clucked his tongue. “I’m astonished you’re such a poor sailor, doctor! You have such a natural rolling gait – it goes back and forth, back and forth…”
“Stop! Stop!” begged Morsicato.
“Yes, do,” said Pietro. “However mad you are at me, we don’t need him vomiting like one of those Venetians.”
“At least if he does, he now has no beard to catch it,” observed Cesco.
“I have a potential solution,” said the Moor, referring not to the doctor’s suffering but their general dilemma. “We land and find shelter, and at the same time send someone innocuous to Cangrande, someone who cannot be stopped without the whole world coming to an end.”
“Not Antonia,” said Pietro.
“I was thinking of someone else.” He explained. In five minutes the plans were laid and Tharwat went to issue the captain new instructions.
Forty-Five
Modena
Monday, 11 November
1325
“Two days! Two days!” The Scaliger paced like a beast in a kennel. “I’ll skin him alive.”
“There hasn’t been any sign of them?” inquired Passerino Bonaccolsi, sipping a cup of honeyed water.
“No,” fretted Bailardino. “Not of either of them.”
